MOTORISTS who enter a bus lane or go through a red light to move out of the way to let an ambulance or police car through could be slapped with a fine.

The Highway Code states: “You should look and listen for ambulances, fire engines, police, doctors or other emergency vehicles using flashing blue, red or green lights and sirens, or flashing headlights, or traffic officer and incident support vehicles using flashing amber lights.”

The highway code also states that you should not panic and consider the route of the vehicle to take appropriate action. If you need to pull over, it suggests stopping before the brow of a hill, a bend or a narrow section of road.

It adds: “Do not endanger yourself, other road users or pedestrians and avoid mounting the kerb.

“Do not brake harshly on approach to a junction or roundabout, as a following vehicle may not have the same view as you.”

Blue Light Aware, is a campaign launched by GEM Motoring Assist, informs drivers on how best to help the emergency services.

Its website states: “Of course, there will be times when there simply is no room for an emergency service vehicle to get past, or perhaps its crew are activated by their control room to respond to an emergency while they are waiting with everyone else at the traffic lights.

“On these occasions, they know that other motorists are not allowed to ‘jump’ the red light, and the emergency vehicle would ideally not activate its sirens and lights until it was safe for the vehicle in front to cross the solid white line at the junction.

“On the (hopefully) rare occasions that a blue light vehicle, in ’emergency mode’, is sitting behind another vehicle at a red traffic light, it’s important to appreciate that it would be both very dangerous and illegal for the other vehicle to move across the solid white line.

“The exception to this is that a uniformed police officer can direct a motorist through a red traffic signal.”

In order to get advanced warnings about approaching emergency vehicles there is a product called Blu Eye which can alert you to their presence to give you more time to plan how you will move safely out of the way



Source thesun